International5

Neighbor News

China-New Zealand Year of Tourism Opens in February 2019

Iran Embassy in Ankara Evacuated after ‘Bomb Warning’

Global Stocks Mostly Slip on Continuing

Global Trade Worries

Syria’s 2 Key Border Crossings Reopen, with

Jordan, Golan

Germany Preparing to Deport Convicted Sept 11 Suspect

Britain, Baltics Seek Italian Support for EU

Cyber Sanctions

India’s Accused Minister Files Defamation Suit

amid Protests

White House, Senators Increase Pressure over Saudi Writer

Tashkent to Resume Operation of Mercedes Buses after Inspection

Turkmenistan Co-Ops with World Customs Organization

Pakistan Eyes to Begin Constructing Its TAPI Section in

Near Future

Koreas Agree to Break Ground on Inter-Korean Railroad

TASHKENT - Tashkent Transport Service JSC will return the 2008 Mer-cedes-Benz Low Floor buses to operation after a detailed inspection, Podrobno.uz reported citing the company’s statement.There have been cases when these buses caught fire, and it has been de-cided to stop their opera-tion. On Oct. 10 and Oct. 12, the Mercedes-Benz Low Floor buses, run-ning on the routes #87 and #95, caught fire. An-other incident occurred on Sept. 28 when a bus caught fire at the Kuylik Ota bus stop on Fargona Yuli Street in Tashkent.However, Tashkent

ASHGABAT - A meet-ing between the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Af-fairs of Turkmenistan Rashid Meredov and the Secretary General of the World Customs Or-ganization (WTO) Kunio Mikuriya has taken place in Brussels, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said in a statement.The promising areas of cooperation between Turkmenistan and the World Customs Organi-zation were discussed during the meeting.In particular, the Turk-men side expressed inter-est in studying and learn-ing the experience of the WTO in improving the

ANKARA - Iran’s envoy to Turkey was evacu-ated from the embassy in Ankara on Monday after warnings of a possible bomb threat, local media reported.But Tehran flatly denied the report as a complete fabrication.“Such a claim is a sheer lie, and the personnel at our embassy are present at their workplace in full health and security,” the foreign ministry said in a statement on its website.Earlier on Monday, DHA news agency said Iran’s mission in the Turkish capital had been given an intelligence warning about a possible suicide bomb attack, prompting the evacuation of Ambas-sador Mohammad Ebra-him Taherian Fard.The road by the embassy

ISLAMABAD - Paki-stan will start construc-tion of its section of the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) gas pipeline by December 2018, the Turkmengas State Con-cern said in a message citing a statement by Abdul Rahman Bilal Sitara-e-Jurat, Director of the Pakistani Measac Research Center, at a seminar held recently in Islamabad.Implementation of the TAPI project is expected to take two years. The Pakistani government plans to sign a memo-randum of understand-ing with an unnamed German company for execution of the project in Pakistan.Total length of the TAPI gas pipeline, with a design capacity of 33 TOKYO — Global

stocks mostly slipped Monday as investors continued to worry about global trade and prospects for economic growth. The price of oil rose amid tensions over Saudi Arabia, a major crude exporter.KEEPING SCORE: France’s CAC 40 lost 0.2 percent to 5,087, while Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 0.1 percent at 6,989. Germany’s DAX bucked the trend, rising 0.3 percent to 11,561. U.S. shares were also

QUNEITRA, Syria — Two key Syrian border crossings reopened on Monday after years of war and violence — one with Jordan for commer-cial traffic and the other with the Israeli-held Golan Heights for U.N. peacekeepers — in a major boost to President Bashar Assad’s govern-ment.The crossing with Jordan brought a promise of re-storing trade and move-ment between the two countries. At the crossing with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, U.N. ob-

BERLIN — A Moroccan man convicted of helping three of the Sept. 11 attackers as they plotted to strike New York and Washington was flown from a Ham-burg jail on Monday to the city’s airport in preparation for his deportation to his home country.Mounir el Motassadeq, who was con-victed in 2006 of membership in a terror-ist organization and accessory to murder for his part in the plot, was expected to be put on a flight later in the day to Mar-rakesh, Morocco.The 44-year-old was flown by helicopter to the airport, and then escorted from the helicopter by two heavily armed police officers to another waiting helicopter. It took off shortly after, presumably to take el Motassadeq to a larger airport for the international flight to Morocco. (AP)

LUXEMBOURG - A European Union sanctions plan to punish computer hack-ers is not directed at Russia or any one sin-gle country, Lithuania’s foreign minister said on Monday, as Italy came under pres-sure from a group of EU members states to back the proposal.Seven EU countries including Britain, the Netherlands and Lithuania are pushing for the EU to be able to impose sanctions more quickly on specific individuals any-where in the world, freezing their assets in the bloc and banning them from entry, according to an EU document obtained by Reuters. (Reuters)

NEW DELHI — India’s junior exter-nal affairs minister filed a criminal case for defamation in court Monday against a woman who has accused him of sexual harassment, his attor-ney said.Minister M.J. Akbar filed a case against journalist Priya Ramani, the first of more than a dozen women to allege harassment in recent weeks from his days as a newspaper editor, Akbar’s lawyer Sandeep Kapur told The Associated Press.The move came as dozens of mem-bers of the opposition India National Congress party’s youth wing clashed with police outside Akbar’s New Del-hi home, demanding his resignation.On Sunday, Akbar denied the allega-tions as “false, baseless and wild.”The string of allegations began with a tweet from Ramani on Oct. 8 in which she identified Akbar as the man who had harassed her as mentioned in an article for Vogue India a year ago.Since then, more than a dozen oth-er women, mostly journalists who worked with Akbar or interviewed with him for jobs when he was an ed-itor in Kolkata and New Delhi, have accused him of sexual harassment in the #MeToo campaign sweeping In-dia.In a statement on Sunday, Akbar said that Ramani and another of his accus-ers had continued working with him after the alleged harassment, which, he said, “clearly establishes that they had no apprehension and discom-fort.” (AP)

Transport Service JSC eyes to partially aban-don the use of these buses.“These buses have been temporarily removed from the roads; now they are being inspected. During the inspection, some of them will be overhauled. At the same time, the majority of buses will return to op-eration after an in-depth inspection and trouble-shooting,” the company stated.Tashkent Transport Ser-vice JSC also intends to purchase 120 SAZ LE 60 and MAN buses un-til the end of the year in order the replace the old vehicles. (Trend)

organization of customs control at the borders, the message says.Turkmenistan, with its modern infrastructural facilities, is becoming an important part of trade and transport and logis-tics systems at the region-al and international level.The World Customs Or-ganization is an intergov-ernmental international organization headquar-tered in Brussels, Bel-gium.It is expected that rail-ways and highways will connect the city of Tor-ghundi in the Afghan province of Herat with Ashgabat, then with the Caspian port of Turk-menbashi. (Trend)

was shut off and police could be seen searching cars in the area, an AFP photographer said.In 2015 and 2016, Turkey was hit by a series of ter-ror attacks which were blamed on both Kurdish militants and the Islamic State jihadist group.The last attack blamed on IS was in January 2017 when a gunman killed 39 people at an elite Istanbul nightclub during New Year celebrations.Since then, Turkish police have conducted regular raids across the country against suspected IS ji-hadists. They have also regularly targeted mem-bers of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is blacklist-ed as a terrorist organisa-tion by Ankara and its Western allies. (AFP)

billion cubic meters of gas per year, is ap-proximately 1,840 kilo-meters. The length of the Turkmen section, which began to be built in December 2015, will be 205 kilometers.Then, this energy bridge will pass through the Afghan cities of Herat and Kandahar (816 kilometers), through the cities of Quetta and Multan across Pakistani territory (819 kilom-eters), and reach the settlement of Fazilka in India. On Feb. 23, 2018, a sol-emn ceremony was held to begin construc-tion of the Afghan sec-tion of TAPI, which will export the gas from the Galkynysh field in Turkmenistan, the second largest in the world. (Trend)

SEOUL, South Korea — North and South Korea continued their push for peace Monday with high-level talks that resulted in a host of agreements, including a plan by the ri-vals for a groundbreaking ceremony this year on an ambitious project to con-nect their railways and roads.The agreements come amid unease in Wash-ington over the speed of inter-Korean engagement. Many outsiders believe that U.S.-led efforts to rid the North of its nuclear-tipped missiles are lag-ging significantly behind the Koreas’ efforts to move past decades of bit-ter rivalry.

WASHINGTON — The White House is brushing aside threats by Saudi Ara-bia that it may economically retaliate for any U.S. punitive action imposed over the suspected murder of journalist Ja-mal Khashoggi, pledging a “swift, open, transparent investigation” into his disap-pearance.Two leading Republican senators said Congress stands ready to act, including a possible halt of military sales, if President

Saudi Currency at Weakest in Two Years on Khashoggi Case

WELLINGTON - The of-ficial 2019 China-New Zealand Year of Tourism opening ceremony will be held at Museum of New Zealand in February 2019, New Zealand tourism Minister Kelvin Davis said on Monday.The opening ceremony, scheduled on Feb. 20, 2019, will feature a special event at the national museum Te Papa, hosted by China National Tourism Office. It coincides with the host-ing of 2,300-year-old Chi-nese artefacts as a part of the Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality

A series of weapons tests by North Korea last year, and an exchange of insults and threats between Presi-dent Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, had many on the Korean Peninsula fearing war. But there has since

been a surprising peace initiative, with three inter-Korean summits and a June meeting in Singapore between Trump and Kim. The U.S. and North Korea are working on plans for a second such summit. (AP)

Donald Trump doesn’t.White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow declined to speculate on what Trump might do after the president promised “severe punishment” in a “60 Minutes” interview, if the U.S. deter-mines that Khashoggi was indeed killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. On Sunday, the oil-rich kingdom suggested retaliation if the U.S. were to impose strict measures. (AP)

exhibition.“The 2019 China-New Zea-land Year of Tourism is a fantastic opportunity for New Zealand to showcase what it is that makes us a world class destination, and for us to think about how we can best welcome Chinese visitors to our shores,” Davis said in a statement.“It’s also a great opportu-nity for New Zealanders to learn more about China and its culture, through the Te Papa exhibition and two-way tourism,” he said.More Chinese visitors are coming to New Zealand

than ever before, with 450,000 people visiting in the year to June 2018. This is set to increase to 800,000 visitors by 2024, the min-ster noted. “New Zealand

set to drift lower, with Dow and S&P 500 fu-tures losing 0.1 percent.ASIA’S DAY: Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 dipped 1.9 percent to finish at 22,271.30, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped nearly 1 percent to 5,837.10. South Korea’s Kospi edged down 0.8 per-cent to 2,145.12. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.5 percent to 25,411.64, while the Shanghai Composite shed 1.5 percent to 2,568.10. (AP)

servers were finally able to return, four years after they left the area because of fighting.The simultaneous reo-pening was highly sym-bolic, reinforcing the Syrian government’s message that it is slow-ly emerging victorious from the seven-year conflict. It also restores a commercial lifeline to the outside world, via Jordan. “No one can marginalize Syria, and I raised the necessity of (Syria’s) return to the Arab League,” al-Jaafari said. (AP)

and China’s shared tour-ism relationship is a spe-cial and enduring one and the Year of Tourism is a fit-ting way to celebrate this,” he said. (Xinhua)

Putin Approves Fundamentals of Russian State Nuclear Security Policy

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree, which was published Monday on the portal of legal

information, approv-ing the fundamentals of state policy on ensuring the nuclear and radia-tion safety of Russia until

2025 and beyond.The decree, signed on Saturday and effective from the date of signa-ture, defines the policy

on ensuring national security in using Rus-sian nuclear facilities for military and civil pur-poses, minimizing risks of the personnel of those facilities and increasing the responsibility of in-stitutions using nuclear energy.The decree invalidates the previous document on nuclear security ap-proved in 2012 and in-structs the Russian gov-ernment to approve a plan for the implemen-tation of the document within three months. (Xinhua)

DUBAI - Saudi Arabia’s currency fell to its lowest level in two years and its international bond prices slipped on Monday over fears that foreign investment inflows could shrink as Riyadh faces pres-sure over the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.Trade in the forward currency market, used by banks to hedge investments, suggested some in-stitutions were protecting them-selves against the risk of capital outflows or U.S. sanctions on Ri-yadh after the disappearance of Khashoggi, a prominent critic of Saudi authorities, in Istanbul.But the market moves were small-er than some bouts of instability in the last several years, indicating investors were not as panicked by the Khashoggi case as they were by a plunge of oil prices that be-gan in 2014.

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened “se-vere punishment” for Riyadh if it turned out that Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Instanbul, as Turkish officials allege. Saudi Ara-

bia has denied this and on Sunday warned it would counter any sanctions with greater ones of its own.Oil prices moved only slightly on Monday as

analysts said they doubted Sau-di Arabia, the word’s biggest exporter of crude, would risk international isolation and dam-age its own finances by cutting back exports at a time when it is pushing through reforms de-signed to create jobs and diver-sify its economy.But Krisjanis Krustins, director in the Middle East and Africa team at credit ratings agency Fitch, said the affair could hurt some parts of the reform pro-gram.“If there is any lasting change in investor willingness to engage with Saudi Arabia, it could lead to slower and less complete im-plementation of some Vision 2030 initiatives, and greater need for Saudi Arabia to use debt and internal resources to fi-nance them,” he said. (Reuters)